Written by: Tom Ganderton
Written for: Cuttlefish Digital team, GSCC NLT representatives.
With input from: The whole Cuttlefish team, a selection of GSCC Network colleagues, partners across Asia.

Executive summary

Summary overview

Cuttlefish Digital was established in December 2019 to build upon and expand the work of the GSCC Network’s Asia Digital Hub. Since then, Cuttlefish, with its partners, launched more than 60 digital projects on critical climate issues, like energy finance, corporate responsibility, lobbying, investments and deforestation, and launched public mobilisation brands like Action Speaks Louder and K-Pop 4 Planet. The digital campaigns Cuttlefish supported have resulted in real-world wins, like coal finance phase-out policies in Malaysia and Japan, pressuring Asia’s life and non-life insurance sector to decarbonise, project-busting in Vietnam and Bangladesh, launching new coalitions and owned media brands and more.

As Cuttlefish enters its fourth year of operations in 2023, we propose implementing a three-year strategic plan from July 2023 to June 2026 to help us achieve a greater impact for climate campaigns with partners. This document is a map to help us get there.

In the coming three years, we want to strengthen our role as a white-label digital campaigning agency and creative partner, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region.

Adding national digital capacity in priority Asian markets.
Creating new digital teams in key Asian markets like Japan and new operational infrastructure for GSCC nationally driven and country-desk digital strategies (see: 4.1.4.4 / 4.1.5.3 / 4.1.6.2)
Launching more diverse media properties
Building out Energy Tracker Asia, Energy Tracker Japan and Climate Impacts Tracker Asia, as well as launching at least two more owned media properties on critical climate issues. (see: 4.3.3)
Support GSCC’s global audience insights function
Our Insights team will strengthen data analytics systems, internationalise their efforts and help integrate this work with other audience insights functions, and finally, make sure the audience engagement data informs and strengthens Cuttlefish’s campaigns (see: 4.2.5.3 / 4.2.6.1)
Adding new capacity and talent to the climate movement
By launching a regional Fellowships program, the Asia Digital Exposure Lab (ADX Lab - working title), and creating a Community of Practice on Creative Campaigns. (see: 4.4.3 / 4.1.6.3)
Further professionalising our operations and governance
Operations will underpin our work by creating new policies, ensuring compliance in our domiciled countries, updating our governance structure and running the day-to-day operations of Cuttlefish. (see: 4.5.3)
Expanding our internal ‘think tank’ for campaigns
By inviting campaign strategists to join an expanded Program Steering Committee, which will be tasked to inform which campaigns and issues we prioritise, and also to oversee the new Partnerships Strategy. (see: 4.1.4.7 / 5.1)

By growing in these areas above throughout the next three years
– by June 2026 – Cuttlefish Digital can:

Support at least 20 creative campaigns each year and roll out national/sub-regional digital strategies in key markets.
Run at least five owned media properties (currently three), with newly recruited Editorial Leads working with leading content creators.
Help build a network-wide integrated audience insights function in a way that helps Cuttlefish use those holistic insights for audience engagement.
Support up to six campaigning or tech/marketing/media/arts graduates to enter our sector each year through a Fellowships
program.
Offer compliant and equitable operational processes, fairer governance and a structure capable of managing the expansion of our work.
Have greater independence to create an impactful portfolio of projects and a consistent
approach to managing our
partnerships.

The problems we seek to address and proposed solutions

Shrinking civic space and challenging media environments in Asia.
Limited media space, social media advertising constraints, the decline in democracy in many Asian countries make the climate movement’s work more challenging and risky for partners.
SOLUTION
  • Advising more partners on their digital campaign strategy and supporting the implementation of campaign activities.
  • Establish and continue to grow owned media platforms like Energy Tracker Asia and Climate Impact Tracker.
  • Expanding support for unbranded digital climate campaigns where the risks to individual NGOs are significant.
Cuttlefish programs: Creative Campaigns, Editorial.
Limited specialist digital skills, experience, and structures in climate organisations.
In a 2021 survey and through previous experience, we’ve identified a lack of specialist digital skill sets, and limited digital campaign planning, analysing results, and defining target audiences. For example, an organisation may have 1-2 digital specialists at most, expected to cover the full range of digital strategy, content creation, data analysis, budget management, and long-term strategy setting.
SOLUTION
  • Continuing to play a supporting role in helping partners scale up their campaigns through digital.
  • This includes working with them to set strategies, set metrics and review results, and ensure structures are in place to exploit opportunities and external momentum.
  • Technical support on digital marketing, SEO / SEM, testing and optimisation, content, and strategy identification.
Cuttlefish programs: Creative Campaigns, Insights.
The importance and complexity of the Asia region in the climate fight in the next decade needs to be matched with appropriate digital capacity at the national and regional level.
The Asia region has a large percentage of the world’s population, but with the complexity of highly diverse cultures, legal systems, and mixed acceptance of progressive voices on climate that vary hugely between geographies.
SOLUTION
  • Scale up digital capacity with a focus on key strategic geographies (e.g., Japan) and issues (e.g., LNG technology exports).
  • Continuing to drive support for 3-6 month projects through our project portfolio, strengthened through in-country teams in priority markets like Japan.
  • Working as a service provider but also drawing on local knowledge, expertise, and other service providers
Cuttlefish programs: Creative Campaigns, Fellowships.
Partner organisations need to scale up their organisation’s digital campaigning capacity.
Digital campaigning capacity needs to grow at the scale in which the climate movement also intends to grow. Examples: 1) In India, a number of NGOs seek to achieve a 10-20 times increase in the capacity or projects in the next 3-5 years; 2) New organisations in Japan are being established through funder support.
SOLUTION
  • Provide support and additional capacity as groups scale their organisations and work.
  • Develop a new pipeline of work, through Fellowships, seeking to attract the best and brightest new talent through a pilot program in Bangkok.
  • Continuing to serve partners as generous collaborators.
Cuttlefish programs: Creative Campaigns, Fellowships.
CSOs with the most digital experience don’t focus enough on serving high-value audiences or individuals.
Of the climate organisations in Asia with the strongest digital capacity, efforts are spent on supporter engagement, brand communication, and public fundraising. While this is important for their resilience, it leaves less space and expertise to engage high-value audiences and decision-makers through strategic digital communications.
SOLUTION
  • Cuttlefish’s business model doesn’t rely on public fundraising for our operations, freeing us up to focus activities on increasing the impact of climate campaigns.
  • Through supporting these campaigns we’re positioned to build a case for partners to engage more of this work independently.
Cuttlefish programs: Creative Campaigns.
Fewer agencies are available that focus exclusively on climate issues.
There are a handful of progressive-minded agencies in Asia but none focusing exclusively on climate advocacy campaigns. Other big-name commercial agencies that offer pro-bono work offer some potential to support climate campaigns, though more effort is required to socialise these agencies on the needs of climate advocacy work.
SOLUTION
  • Cuttlefish would continue to serve a unique space of climate advocacy campaigns in Asia.
  • Through the partnerships strategy, relationships with agencies offering pro-bono work could be explored where it makes sense, noting that such relationships take time to develop before they yield useful results.
Cuttlefish programs: Creative Campaigns.

Vision, purpose, mission and values

Vision & purpose
To be the leading digital agency driving world-changing climate action campaigns.
Mission
We collaborate with partners and communities to deliver creative and strategic digital campaigns and programs that accelerate positive change with and for the climate movement.

Values

Accountability
We perform our roles to the best of our abilities and take ownership of our actions, behaviours and choices.
Empathy
We strive to understand people by putting ourselves – and walking – in others’ shoes. We are committed to a team culture where we listen to each other and manage our individual actions in ways that are constructive and empowering towards colleagues.
Impact
We make measurable and positive changes in our work in order to make the biggest possible impact for Cuttlefish's campaigns and climate action goals.
Respect
We conduct ourselves and our work with others in ways that take into consideration their professional boundaries, cultures, traditions, identities and humanity.
Supportive
We express our support and encourage one another to excel in our work. When leading others, we do so with a growth mindset that supports learning and development.
Teamwork
We perform tasks as a united team and collaborate with others to create project deliverables and achieve shared goals.
Transparency
We ensure that transparency and trust are at the heart of Cuttlefish and that everyone has the opportunity to see and comment on organisation-wide decisions – a practice that builds trust, accountability, and adaptability.

Our positioning and the niche we seek to fill

Positioning
Cuttlefish Digital’s work contains a mix and balance of experience, access, assets, funding models and diversity that uniquely place us to create the impact we can in the climate campaigning space.
  • Experience: Our team has experience as digital practitioners, marketing professionals, journalists and social change campaigners.
  • Access: Through our partner networks, we’re able to establish relationships with a range of campaigning groups.
  • Assets: Our unbranded nature lets us support different tactics and strategies, from owned media properties to pop-culture movements and brand-attack campaigns.
  • Funding model: We function as a pro-bono digital campaigning agency funded through philanthropic donations, giving us more choice to collaborate on campaigns with the highest potential for long-term impact and success.
  • Diversity: We’re an international team with global perspectives from across our region, with our team of 21 people based in Australia, Asia, Europe and the US.
Cuttlefish’s positioning within the GSCC Network allows it to effectively draw upon the advantages of both (a) a specialised commercial agency and (b) a networked and programmatically informed NGO team.
Niche
Through the Digital Campaigning Capacity Survey in 2021, Cuttlefish surveyed 38 partners in nine countries to learn about the barriers to launching successful digital campaigns. We used the results of this survey to shape the teams in Cuttlefish today to more effectively fill gaps in the region. Based on the above experiences and information, we sought to support progressive climate voices, with a focus on supporting impact in the Asia region and helping to create effective multimedia and digital campaigns to support the climate strategies of our partners and colleagues. See the final slide of this deck for the findings of this survey.
NEXT CHAPTER
OUR SERVICES AND PROGRAMS
Creative Campaigns
OUR PLAN
Executive Summary
Vision
Mission
Positioning
Our priorities
Our services
and programs
Creative Campaigns
Insights
Editorial
Fellowships
Operations